Friday, September 20, 2013

Book Snap: James Dunn's "Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?"

From the September 2010 E-Block. This is a guest review by Jonathan Kendall. With this posting I'm actually now up to speed on posting all E-Block material over 3 years old, so there won't be any new postings on the Ticker from that material until next month -- and we'll also see postings in general here otherwise only if I have a book to review, or something to say. (And actually, in the next 2-3 weeks, I might...we'll see.)***

Along with N. T. Wright, it seems that James
Dunn is well on his way to reaching (or perhaps has already reached) the
pinnacle of this generation of NT scholarship, joining the company of
what, IMO, was a party of one five years ago, the colossal Tϋbingen
scholar, Martin Hengel. Among many other accolades, Dunn currently sits
beside Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham on the cutting edge of
Christological research. I find that this short, yet crucial, addition
to the growing library of fresh Christological insights does not
disappoint [Spoiler alert henceforth!].

Consistent with prior patterns, it is scarcely shocking that Dunn
remains the most cautious of the three leading scholars of early
Christology. In tackling the title question, Dunn opts for an answer of
“generally no,” the first Christians did not worship Jesus. Generally
Jesus was not offered direct cultic worship (based on a study of the
relevant vocabulary, latreuein and proskynein, etc.).
Jesus was not typically the recipient of prayer, and was not typically
the recipient of hymns (Rev 4:9-11, 5:13-14 serve as exceptions).
Rather, prayer was offered to the Father, albeit in Jesus’ name. Jesus
was the subject of hymns, but not typically the recipient of the hymns,
etc. While Dunn does not attempt to completely extract the force from
exceptional passages, he is compelled to water them down substantially
by providing alternative interpretations (with varying degrees of
success, IMO).

For example, regarding the early Christian hymn inherent to Phil.
2:5-11, Dunn concludes that “this hymn clearly affirmed that the Lord
Jesus was on the other side, the divine side, of the act of worshipping
the one God,” but he does not concede that direct worship of Jesus is
the only potential implication of the passage. Rather, it could
“simply be saying that the worship of the one God is now to be expressed
by confessing Jesus as Lord,” especially in light of the closing verse
of the hymn, “to the glory of God the Father.” (pp. 106-107)

Earlier Dunn argued that while it is remarkable that the early
church applied certain OT Kyrios passages to Jesus (in this case Joel
2:32), he also states that this may simply indicate either that “Yahweh
has bestowed his own unique saving power on the Lord who sits on his
right side, or that the exalted Jesus is himself the embodiment as well
as the executive of that saving power.” (pp. 104-105) In support for
the “transfer of divine authority” interpretation, Dunn cites as
examples times when the divine authority, in the appointment of heavenly
judges, was applied to famous OT saints in some Second Temple Jewish
literature (e.g. Adam and Abel in Testament of Abraham 11, 13),
Melchizedek (11QMelch 13-14), Enoch and Elijah (I Enoch 90:31;
Apocalypse of Elijah 24:11-15), and even NT saints (Matthew 19:28/Luke
22:30; I Cor. 6.2-3) [note 31 on p. 107].

Appointment to the role of a heavenly judge is unarguably a
highly-exalted role, and Dunn reminds us elsewhere of highly exalted
prophets, even on rare occasions seated on heavenly thrones (pp. 84-88)
[Interestingly, Richard Bauckham demonstrates elsewhere that aside from
what was said of Jesus in the NT, only divine Wisdom and the “Son of
Man” are said at places in the relevant literature to be seated on
heavenly, divine thrones; the case of Moses by contrast in The Exagogue
of Ezekiel the Tragedian was in the context of a dream, symbolizing his
“earthly” rule over Israel at the time of the Exodus and beyond – cf.
Bauckham’s “Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other
Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity.”
Eerdmans. 152-81]. However, the simple fact remains that in the case
of Joel 2:32, a passage and function that was applied to God (Lord,
Kyrios) in the OT was applied by the early Christians to Jesus. I find
Dunn’s alternative explanation to be ad hoc.

Similar “less astonishing” explanations are invoked to explain
the Christology of I Cor. 8:6 and 15:24-28 (pp. 107-112) and Romans 9:5
(pp. 132-133), and so on. Even the hymns sung to Christ/the Lamb in
Rev. 4:9-11 and 5:13-14 are explained within the context that
“Apocalyptic visions major on the grandiose and the bizarre, on
startling symbolism and hyperbole.” (p. 131)

While Dunn’s cautionary measures provide important reminders of
Christ’s functional subordination to the Father (cf. e.g. John 5:36-43; I
Cor. 3:23; 11:3), he is not always convincing, IMO, in explaining away
the NT instances of direct worship accorded to Christ.

Dunn does point out that “Divine Agency” figures (i.e. Wisdom,
Logos, Spirit) were not objects of cultic devotion (cf. the discussion
in pp. 72-84). Moreover, he points out that even the great angels
Eremiel and Yahoel (the latter who carries the divine name of Yahweh!)
in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah and the Apocalypse of Abraham,
respectively, explicitly deny the offerings of worship that come their
way (pp. 69-71). In the case of exalted angels, however, these later
texts may be a reaction to later Judaism’s confusion over the mysterious
divine figure (typically identified as the “Angel of the Lord”) in the
much-more-ancient OT Scriptures, a figure who is often identified as
God, who sometimes elicits the prostration of those to whom he reveals
himself, and refers to the ground around him as holy (cf. e.g. Exodus
3:2-6; Joshua 5:13-15; Judges 6:11-13; 13:3-23; etc.). I think in
particular that the “Angel of the Lord” establishes OT precedent for the
direct worship of a “Divine Agent,” which should instruct us not to
adopt what are often forced explanations of NT data that indicate that
Jesus was sometimes the direct recipient of such worship.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to understand Dunn as not
falling on the side of a very high Christology. Dunn argues that just
as the OT “Angel of the Lord,” “Lady Wisdom,” “God’s “Word,” (Logos) and
even “Spirit of God” were expounded under the rubric of “Divine
Agency,” so the same was applied by the early Christians to Jesus. In
fact, while Dunn believes Wisdom to be a personification that shares in
exclusively divine functions according to Second Temple Judaism, he
demonstrates how Wisdom and Logos Christology specifically are applied
by the early church to Jesus (pp. 116-29). The implications of this are
immense.

Of the OT “Angel of the Lord,” he writes:

Clearly in these cases it is impossible to distinguish between
the angel of Yahweh and Yahweh himself; they are obviously one and the
same person. Or at the very least we have to say that the narrators of
these stories neither saw any need to make a clear distinction nor
thought it important to do so. The point that emerges presumably is
that the tellers of these stories were primarily intent to indicate the
reality of the divine presence in these theophanic experiences. It is
not that they wished to deny either the otherness of Yahweh, or that God
was invisible to human sight...but a more sophisticated way of putting
it would be to say that by speaking thus of the angel of the Lord they
had found a way of denoting the reality of the divine presence in such
theophanic encounters without diminishing the holy otherness of Yahweh.
The angel of the Lord in such stories was a way of speaking of God’s immanence without detracting from his transcendence.
The angel of God both was God and was not God. Alternatively
expressed, the angel of God was God’s way of manifesting himself to his
servants without manifesting himself. The angel of God was not God as
such but could be said to be God in his self-revelation. (pp. 67-68, emphasis original)

Parenthetically, I would remark that Dunn’s claim of bringing
“the divine presence into humans’ daily reality” should not be
underplayed. Recall that even the place on Earth where the divine
figure stood was sometimes expressed as holy ground in such theophanies
(cf. e.g. Exodus 3:2-5; Joshua 5:13-15).

Regarding God’s Spirit, Wisdom, and Word (the latter two Dunn
goes on to demonstrate were applied to Christ – pp. 117-124), he
summarizes:

Even more so, the Spirit, divine Wisdom, and the Logos were
variously used as ways of speaking of God’s immanence without infringing
on his transcendent otherness. They enabled sages and philosophers to
do what would otherwise have been impossible – to speak of the actual
interaction of God with his creation and with his people. (p. 90)

Nor does Dunn fail to acknowledge the astonishing nature of the
early Christian claims that the only way in which appropriate devotion
and prayer could be offered to God (the Father) is through Jesus, or
that Jesus was the very subject of the hymns offered to God, or that
salvation is only made possible by Jesus:

That Jesus was central to early Christian worship is not to be
doubted. He was the reason why their prayers could be offered with
confidence and the principal subject of their hymns. It was his name
they invoked; they appealed to him in times of personal crisis. And
their praise of God naturally included praise of Christ. He was himself
the sacred space in whom they met as his bodily presence (‘body of
Christ’) still on earth. It was his day on which they met most
regularly. Their sacred meal was his supper, the key elements his body
and blood. He alone was the priest through whom they could now come to
God. His sacrificial death had dealt with their sins and opened the way
to God. Their entry into the divine presence was possible not only
because of what he had accomplished (Good Friday and Easter), but
through him and in him. (p. 57)
Jesus is to be understood categorically as a divine agent on par
with Wisdom and Logos, the embodiment of God expressed to mankind (pp.
123-125).

Indeed, it is because of these and other such devotional factors
(six in total as espoused by Larry Hurtado), all of which lacked
precedent except in application to God prior to the time of Jesus (cf.
his “One God, One Lord,” T & T Clark: 1998, 99-114), that Hurtado
could conclude that this amounted to the worship of Jesus.

Dunn, however, demurs in that God (the Father) is always the
ultimate “target” of early Christian devotion. He also takes issue with
Bauckham’s vocabulary in regards to ascribing Jesus a place within the
“Divine Identity” (pp. 141-144), opting instead throughout the book for
“Divine Agency.” Dunn’s objections notwithstanding, I start to wonder
if the disagreement is simply a matter of semantics. Despite Dunn’s
reluctance to accord certain NT passages that apply direct worship of
Jesus their full Christological due, it seems to me that the inevitable
implication of Dunn’s book-length argument is that Jesus somehow shares
in the “Divine Essence” (again, we’re back to semantics) with God the
Father, though I don’t think he ever makes such a bold statement (one
way or the next). In any event, Jesus is the visible
expression/manifestation of God, but is at the same time not God the
Father (pp. 122-23).

Again, Dunn generally does not tend to diminish the force of
early Christian texts that carry divine implications in reference to
Jesus (except where implications of direct worship are involved). Jesus
is the figure exalted above the angels who resides at the right hand of
God. OT Kyrios texts originally applied to God and that convey
exclusively divine functions or offices are commonly applied to Jesus by
the NT authors. Jesus is the agent through whom God created the
universe and mankind. Jesus is ascribed as the source of the outpouring
of God’s Spirit! Jesus was even given the titles of God/god (cf. p.
145, Dunn’s concluding thoughts; on Jesus as God/god cf. the discussion
on pp. 132-136). Though Dunn may decline the provision of an
unqualified “yes” or “no” answer to the title question, his Christology
is nevertheless a high Christology.

In sum, Dunn has made yet another indispensable contribution to
the expanding library of early NT Christology, providing important
balance to the other monumental studies on offer by the likes of Larry
Hurtado, Richard Bauckham, and others.